Riches and Bitches: I have a gate to an isekai and leveling-up system!

44  Paid with blood

An arrow struck me right in my heart. Not in the knee as the fandom rules required, but right at the second most lethal point after my head. Strangely enough, though, even though I felt the blade cut through my clothes and strike my chest… I hardly felt any discomfort. 'I guess I only have my dear system to thank for this,' I thought, staring at the sparse information I'd received a moment earlier. [Endurance: 4.5] > [Endurance: 7.5]

[Usable points: 3] > [Usable points: 0]

I saved those three points, hoping to invest them into my attributes once I learned what was the most important aspect of my power to put them to. Or, in simpler words, once I knew an efficient strategy of investing those. But in moments like the one right now, I hardly had the room to spare any effort. 'My system… and Szczepanik's vest!' This was the only other ace card I brought along to this world besides the gun. A simple set of three, high-quality silk shirts that I wore all at once. A lesser known type of a protective vest. One that wasn't actually bulletproof, but belonged to the category of kinetic armor, where the thickly packed and tangled weaves of silk that made up my set of three shirts simply drained all the momentum out of the arrow as it cut through them, turning it into a harmless piece of wood and metal by the time it stopped, still several layers of silk away from my skin.

And so, with the arrow sticking out of my chest, I moved the barrel of my gun, to the next target, the young mage girl that I noticed casting the fireball at me before. Yet, when I moved my sighs to the girl, she was already hanging in the air while grabbing herself by her throat, as if someone was squeezing the life out of her. But she was all alone! There was no one near her to not only block her airways but also raise her into the air… Thankfully, there was no need for Fay's mom to get close to her target. Ignoring the distance, she cosplayed Darth Vader from Star Wars, holding her hand up while choking the life out of that mage girl in spite of the distance that separated them. 'I knew it,' I thought, turning my gun in search of yet another target. 'Six bullets, no idea how many left,' I thought, trying my utmost to recall how many bullets I saw when Mark passed me the spare mags… But sadly, I either couldn't recall the image now or simply didn't pay enough attention to it when I received the weapon to remember it. 'Six bullets gone,' I thought as I looked around the entire area, counting up the enemies. 'In other words, I don't have enough for all of those fuckers!'

I counted another eight enemies rushing to join the fight, fearlessly ignoring the strange magic that was picking them up like flies. And there were god-only-knows how many that eluded my quick glance. Already aware I wouldn't be able to shoot them all before my first mag ran dry, I simply decided to ignore the issue… while opting out of double-tapping. I simply didn't have enough ammo in the gun to afford this tactic… And the second I would need to switch the mags, those bastards would find the opening to strike back! And with Fay still rooted at the very front of our group, she would be the one bearing the brunt of their fury!

'Don't falter!" I screamed out in my mind, turning the gun towards the enemy closest to Fay before steadily pulling the trigger. BANG!

By now, I was either used to the noise or my ears simply grew too dull to overreact to the sound anymore. Peng!

The bullet… shattered the barrier of the advancing enemy, at the cost of bouncing off. 'Tsk,' I held back a curse and limited myself to just clicking my tongue as I corrected for the movement of the advancing man and pulled the trigger again… Only for the gun to shake in my hands when the firing pin struck nothing but air. 'Right now?!' I freaked out… But my body did not. And with a smoothness and grace only an expert who ate his teeth while training those specific movements, I pressed the release of the empty mag while my left hand already reached the belt where I kept the spares before rapidly raising it back up, accurately throwing it into the empty slot within the gun's handle. The change of the mag took me a mere two seconds… Two seconds that all the enemies used to advance, reaching near Fay enough to once again put my girl in danger. 'STAY AWAY FROM HER!' I screamed out in my thoughts… while my body acted as calmly as usual, aligning the sights and the target before firing the gun once again. This time, the attacker nearest Fay had no barrier to shield him from the bullet. But the time I wasted changing mags allowed another two to catch up. And they were too close. Far enough for me to pick off one… but doing so would give the other just enough time to strike at Fay's defenseless body. To the side, another attacker fell, this time seemingly collapsing to a singular point that appeared on his body and simply sucked all the matter around towards it, breaking the man's bones when applying the pressure from such an unusual angle. I paid no attention to the gruesome sight, though. My mind was too full of despair and hate to care for gore now. By the time I finally aligned my sights again, Fay's mom was already rushing to her daughter… But she was too far. And I had no time to shoot two men before one of them would reach my woman… And even if that powerful woman could, by some miracle, pull her rescue off, a sudden attack of two swordsmen from her flank rooted her in place as she was forced to fend their attacks off. "FUCK!" No longer able to hold back my distress, I uttered the curse born from the very depths of my soul out loud. And then, the strangely familiar sense of pain and darkness, something I was so fucking used to, reemerged right as the flow of time went bonkers yet again. Tic. My skin opened up in at least a hundred places, cut by some invisible force. Minding not what the hell was going on, I jumped on the opportunity and corrected my aim before pulling the trigger… Only for my finger to meet a strong resistance as if the air itself turned into some sort of a thick, viscous soup. Every millimeter that my finger pulled came with the price of my own blood that burst out of the hundred injuries that appeared all over my face. But how could I care about something as small as this? I pulled the trigger. Then again.

Doubletap. Doubletap. The two who nearly got a strike at Fay fell down, smitten by an attack they couldn't see or fathom. Tap. Following suit, I spat out a mouthful of blood as my body lost all its strength and fell to the ground. And I sensed the time picking up its usual pace again, my consciousness gave up and floated away into nothingness.  n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om